Monday, December 6, 2010

Three Kind of English

Wanna get something to eat? Friendspeak
Friendspeak is informal and filled with slang. Its sentence structure breaks all the rules that English teachers love. [Paid Recommendations^^: Using Mac photo recovery to recover your lost photos.] It’s the language of I know you and you know me and we can relax together. In friendspeak the speakers are on the same level. They have nothing to prove to each other, and they’re comfortable with each other’s mistakes. In fact, they make some mistakes on purpose, just to distinguish their personal conversation from what they say on other occasions. Here’s a conversation in friendspeak:


Me and him are going to the gym. Wanna come?
He’s like, I did 60 push-ups, and I’m like, no way.


I doubt that the preceding conversation makes perfect sense to many people, but the participants understand it quite well. Because they both know the
whole situation (the guy they’re talking about gets muscle cramps after 4 seconds of exercise), they can talk in shorthand.


I don’t deal with friendspeak in this book. You already know it. In fact, you’ve probably created a version of it with your best buds.

Do you feel like getting a sandwich? Conversational English
A step up from friendspeak is conversational English. [Paid Recommendations^^: Using photo recovery software to recover your lost photos.] Although not quite friendspeak, conversational English includes some friendliness. Conversational English doesn’t stray too far from your English class rules, but it does break some. You can relax, but not completely. It’s the tone of most everyday speech, especially between equals. Conversational English is — no shock here — usually for conversations, not for writing. Specifically, conversational English is appropriate in these situations:


  ✓ Chats with family members, neighbors, acquaintances
  ✓ Informal conversations with teachers and co-workers
  ✓ Friendly conversations (if there are any) with supervisors
  ✓ Notes, e-mails, instant messages, and texts to friends
  ✓ Comments in Internet chat rooms, bulletin boards, and so on
  ✓ Friendly letters to relatives


Conversational English has a breezy sound. Letters are dropped in contractions (don’t, I’ll, would’ve, and so forth). You may also skip words (Got a
minute? Be there soon! and similar expressions), especially if you’re writing in electronic media with a tight space requirement. In written form, conversational English relaxes the punctuation rules, too. Sentences run together, dashes connect all sorts of things, and half sentences pop up regularly. I’m using conversational English to write this book because I’m pretending that I’m chatting with you, the reader, not teaching grammar in a classroom situation.

Will you accompany me to the dining room? Formal English
You’re now at the pickiest end of the language spectrum: formal, grammatically correct speech and writing. [Paid Recommendations^^:data recovery to recover your lost photos.] Formal English displays the fact that you have an advanced vocabulary, a knowledge of etiquette, and command of standard rules of English usage. You may use formal English when you have less power, importance, and/or status than the other person in the conversation. Formal English shows that you’ve trotted out your best behavior in his or her honor. You may also speak or write in formal English when you have more power, importance, and/or status than the other person. The goal of using formal English is to impress, to create a tone of dignity, or to provide a suitable role model for someone who is still learning. Situations that call for formal English include:

✓ Business letters or e-mails (from or between businesses as well as from
individuals to businesses)
  ✓ Letters or e-mails to government officials
  ✓ Office memos or e-mails
  ✓ Reports
  ✓ Homework
  ✓ Communications to teachers
  ✓ Speeches, presentations, oral reports
  ✓ Important conversations (for example, job interviews, college interviews, parole hearings, congressional inquiries, inquisitions, sessions with the principal in which you explain that unfortunate incident with the stapler, and so on)


Think of formal English as a business suit. If you’re in a situation where you want to look your best, you’re also in a situation where your words matter. In business, homework, or any situation in which you’re being judged, use formal English.

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Sunday, December 5, 2010

Phat gramma

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Psst! Want to be in the in-crowd? Easy. Just create an out-crowd and you’re all set. How do you create an out-crowd? Manufacture a spe-
cial language (slang) with your friends that no one else understands, at least until the media picks  it  up.  It’s  the  ultimate  friendspeak.  You
and your pals are on the inside, talking about a sketchy neighborhood (sketchy means “dan-gerous”). Everyone else is on the outside, won-
dering how to get the 411 (information). Should you  use  slang  in  your  writing?  Probably  not, unless you’re dealing with a good friend. The
goal of writing and speaking is communication, and slang may be a mystery to your intended audience.  Also,  because  slang  changes  so
quickly,  even  a  short  time  after  you’ve  writ-ten something, the meaning may be obscure.


Instead of cutting-edge, you sound dated. When you talk or write in slang, you also risk sounding  uneducated.  In  fact,  sometimes breaking the usual rules is the point of slang. In general, you should make sure that your readers know that you understand the rules before you start breaking them (the rules, not the readers) safely.

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Thursday, December 2, 2010

Deciding Which Grammar to Learn

I n the Middle Ages, grammar meant the study of Latin, the language of choice for educated people. In fact, grammar was so closely associated
with Latin that the word referred to any kind of learning. This meaning of grammar shows up when people of grandparent-age and older talk about
their grammar school, not their elementary school. The term grammar school is a leftover from the old days. The very old days.

These days grammar is the study of language, specifically, how words are put together. Because of obsessive English teachers and their rules, grammar
also means a set of standards that you have to follow in order to speak and write better. However, the definition of better changes according to situation, purpose, and audience. I will show you the difference between formal and informal English and explain when each is called for. I also tell you what your computer can and can’t do to help you write proper English and give you some pointers about appropriate language for texting, tweeting, instant messaging, and similar technology.

I can hear the groan already. Which grammar? You mean there’s more than one? [Paid Recommendations^^: Using photo recovery to recover your lost photos.] Yes, there are actually several different types of grammar, including
historical (how language has changed through the centuries) and comparative (how languages differ from or resemble each other). Don’t despair; I deal with only two — the two you have to know in order to improve your speech and writing.

Descriptive grammar gives names to things — the parts of speech and parts of a sentence. When you learn descriptive grammar, you understand what
every word is (its part of speech) and what every word does (its function in the sentence). If you’re not careful, a study of descriptive grammar can go
overboard fast, and you end up saying things like “balloon” is the object of the gerund, in a gerund phrase that is acting as the predicate nominative of the linking verb “appear.” [Paid Recommendations^^: Using photo recovery for Mac to recover your lost photos on Mac.] Never fear: I wouldn’t dream of inflicting that level of terminology on you. However, there is one important reason to learn some grammar terms — to understand why a particular word or phrase is correct or incorrect.


Functional grammar makes up the bulk of English Grammar For Dummies. Functional grammar tells you how words behave when they are doing their
jobs properly. Functional grammar guides you to the right expression — the one that fits what you’re trying to say — by ensuring that the sentence is
put together correctly. When you’re agonizing over whether to say I or me, you’re actually solving a problem of functional grammar.


So here’s the formula for success: A little descriptive grammar plus a lot of functional grammar equals better grammar overall.

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Tuesday, November 30, 2010

The Copywriter-history,current&future-3

During  my  forty  years  in  the  ad  business,  I’ve  learned  how  ninety  per  cent  of  a copywriter’s life is spent proving to anyone who will listen that during the other ten percent of the time he can actually write. If and when you join an advertising agency, you will discover that most of your best ideas never leave the building; they will be bucketed with  a  regularity  to  make  your  head  spin.  What’s  even  worse,  those  creative  ideas
which do see the light of day will, largely, be accredited to someone else – like the copy chief or the account director.

The fact is, if you produce something truly startling, everyone in the agency – from post room wallah to chief executive officer will want to bask in your glory; and they will dine out on the story of how they came up with your idea.
So  advertising  is,  in  every  respect,  uncompromising;  it  can  reduce  strong  men  to tears  and  even  stronger  women  to  booze  and  promiscuity  overnight.  Setting  aside evenings for a few rounds of Russian roulette should, by comparison, be considered a pretty ordinary way of life. Free-fall parachuting and barbed-wire hurdling are a walk in the wild woods compared to a job in advertising.

But the first and overriding principle of advertising – and one you must have planted firmly in your mind – is that advertising is all about selling. All about moving product: whether  that  product  be  Dell  computers  or  flat-pack  shelving.  Thus,  if  you’ve  any aversion to the profit motive, or if the word profit leaves you with a nasty taste, you are most definitely backing photo recovery software  the wrong horse. Fortunately for all of us, the copywriter doesn’t have to sell himself the way the average salesperson does. Face to face. Which, in my case, is just as well, since I look like someone who should really be playing piano in a bawdy house. Luckily, we copywriters do it behind the scenes on-screen or on paper and are, thankfully, hidden from a cold, hard world that isn’t noticeably falling over itself to buy our stuff. Additionally, whatever personal reservations you may have about it, the product is always king. At least, it always is when you are within earshot of the client. After all, he believes that his product is the greatest thing since the birth of the blues;
and because he is going a good way to providing your pay-cheque, you’d better think the same way.

Nearly  finally,  the  conduct  of  advertising  has  changed  more  than  somewhat  in  the last ten years or so. In the main, it is now researched, copy-tested, response-planned and generally antisepticised to a point where good old gut feeling and common sense plays little part. That’s what they’d like to think anyway. In reality, it still comes down to a couple of guys or gals like you and me turning their brains inside out in an effort to say something different about a product that they have said something different about every three months for the past five years.


We  will,  of  course,  discuss  the  value  of  research  at  a  later  moment.  For  the  time being, however, let’s close this item on the writer proper with a deck-clearing exercise.


I cannot, under any circumstances, teach you to write. You either can or you can’t. You’ll  know  yourself  whether  it  is  the  former  by  the  way  you  continue  to  submit manuscripts for publication despite a roomful of previous rejections. You’ll know by the way  you  everlastingly  criticize  what  you  see  written  all  around  you  –  not  only advertising, but also TV programmes, magazine articles, newspaper stories, and so on.
And, not to put too fine a point on it, you wouldn’t be reading this book unless you had a sneaking feeling that with a little encouragement you could write the rest of us out of the park.
Well, would you?
What I can teach you is this:

1.   The principles of good copywriting.
2.   The art of refining a complicated brief into a simple, but emotive sales message.
3.   The techniques for developing creative concepts.
4.   The nuts and bolts of radio and television work.

And this, I propose to do.
We  will  also  discuss  several  dozen  peripheral  matters.  Right  now,  though,  a  few specific  thoughts  about  the  advertising  business  might  be  in  order.  I  include  these because without a basic understanding of what makes it tick, the entire mechanics of copywriting will remain equally mysterious.
Stand by.

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Sunday, November 28, 2010

The Copywriter-history,current&future-2

The Effulgent. Those to whom ideas come easily and who can improvise with words and thoughts as readily as a latter-day Byron. They can be truly valuable – sometimes invaluable;  but  they  are  no  one’s  backbone.  And  all  too  often  they  are  dilettanti incapable, as the actress said, of hard, grinding, unflagging effort.

The  Undeserving.  Those  who  have  drifted  into  advertising  and  who  can’t  drift  out again soon enough for me. They tend to think of the whole thing as a bit of a chuckle and  really  rather  beneath  them.  They  are  in  advertising  not  because  they  like  it  or believe  in  it,  but  because  it  is  a  way  of  making  a  little  dishonest  money  until  their screenplays are accepted by Hollywood – which they seldom are.


The Troopers. Those who view the business as a worthwhile career, and one that gives  them  the  opportunity  to  spend  their  lives  doing  something  they  enjoy:  selling through writing. They are the mainstay of advertising and while they rarely win acclaim, to say nothing of awards, their work is consistently competent. This kind will attack a brochure for a small micro-engineering outfit with the same enthusiasm as they'd fetch to  a  six-commercial,  national  TV  campaign  data recovery for  Jack  Daniels  or  Jaguar.  They  are  an asset to their agency and a credit to themselves.


It has been said by others, and I agree, that too many copywriters have far too little ability and far too high an opinion of their artistic talents. Really good writers are rarer than  cabs  on  a  wet  night,  and  even  the  troopers  mentioned  above  don’t  come  easy. Ask any ad agency copy chief.
It may be worth noting that, a while ago, I ran a copywriting distance learning course. Over  eight  years  or  so,  I  trained  some  500  writers  –  most  of  whom,  incidentally,  are now  gainfully  employed;  and  a  phpto recovery large  percentage  are  making  names  for  themselves. What was obvious, however, as each of these came into my ambit, was that while the majority could write reasonably well, they were generally more concerned about what advertising could do for them, rather than vice versa. Mind you, it didn’t take me long to disabuse them of this notion.


What initial advice, then, have I to offer potential copywriters? Just this. If you are as good as you fancy you are, you will have (or should have) no trouble imposing yourself upon your agency’s executives and your clients. They should come to think so highly of your work that they are always afraid you will sulk and withdraw your services. If they don’t, then maybe you are not a very good copywriter after all.

But if you insist on pursuing the occupation of copywriter and find yourself behind an agency desk, take the opportunity in both hands. Don’t meddle. Don’t get involved in office  politics.  Push  your  photo recovery for Mac talent  rather  than  yourself.  Take  the  rough  with  the  smooth and be grateful – be very grateful – that you are probably getting more of the smooth than the rough.

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